Birds and Ships
by songandsilence
Summary: She even tries singing a hymn of Gilboa once, but the words stick in her throat and she can't sing anymore." The story of David continues long after the series finale.
1. Chapter 1

Birds sweetly singing in my eyes this day  
Sweet flowers blossom when I smile  
But my soul is stormy and my heart blows wild  
My sweetheart rides a ship on the sea

Though my soul is stormy and my heart blows wild  
Where might my lonesome lover be?

_Birds and Ships_ – Billy Bragg & Wilco ft. Natalie Merchant (lyrics by Woodie Guthrie)

--

The sun is setting over the water, but Michelle isn't looking at it. After four months of staring into the dying light as it sank below the horizon, she has forgotten that sunsets can be beautiful. They just mark another day.

The cottage they are holding her in is surprisingly nice. It's small, but she doesn't need much. A small kitchen, with food delivered every week by someone during the night, left on her doorstep in a basket. Tucked in among the vegetables and loaves of bread are bottles of vitamins, the kind an expecting mother has to take. Her small room is painted in shades of blue, blue that seems pale white in direct sunlight and deep, ocean dark at night.

Sometimes she stares up at it while she is trying to fall asleep, her fingers running over her expanding stomach, and wonders if David has ever seen the sea.

--

The first time the nurse came, Michelle is surprised out of her skin. She had gotten so used to silence that when there was a sharp rap on the door she almost screamed. But when she opened to door, the firing squad she had imagined was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was a woman. She looked about forty years old, with graying streaks in her honey-colored hair.

It was a surprise to see another human being. The king – she refused to call him her father anymore – was very serious about his ruling of no human contact. There were guards, yes, but they remained constantly out of sight. She could walk outside her little house, but she knew that if she wandered too far, she would run in to a soldiered perimeter and go no further. She didn't try.

"Michelle Benjamin?" the woman said.

Michelle laughed, a little out of amusement and a lot out of shock. "Who else?"

The woman nodded in a calm, no-nonsense matter. "I am Hanna Weis. I'm your doctor."

Michelle blinked. "I have…a doctor? But the king – "

"Doesn't know about this," Hanna interrupted. "It was arranged by your mother."

"My mother," Michelle said blankly. Her mother. The woman who said she would protect her, who allowed the king to throw her into this pretty prison.

"Sit," Hanna said. Michelle did, slowly, at her tiny table. Hanna sat near her and began taking things out of her bag. Michelle had no idea what they are – for all the work she did on health care reform, she never knew anything about medical practices. Especially not ones that concerned pregnancy. She never thought she would be pregnant, anyway. The radiation therapy had taken care of that.

And then along came David. Blessed by God, destined to be king, destined to be her husband.

"Your voice sounds good, like you've been using it during your exile," said Hanna, jerking Michelle out of her reverie.

"I've…been singing. To the baby." At that, Hanna's lips curl up in the tiniest of smiles.

"That's good. The baby can hear you, you know. Sing to it, talk to it…next time I come, I will bring an ultrasound machine. Then you can know the baby's gender, if you like."

Michelle shook her head with a smile. "I think I already know." Hanna raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything. If she knew anything about this family…well, she could only assume that the exiled princess had been talking to God as well.

After the check-up, Hanna lay a gentle hand on Michelle's shoulder. "I'll be back in a month." There was something comforting in her voice that told Michelle she was someone to be trusted. Someone she could trust to take care of her and the baby. So she smiled up at the woman and watched her go through the door and walk down the path into the woods.

When she couldn't see Hanna anymore, she feels tears prick the back of her eyes.

"Alone again."

--

She's never alone, though. That's one thing Silas did not foresee when he sent her here. No, she has the baby to talk to. She has God to confide in. And she has David, locked somewhere deep in her chest. She is not alone.

There is a thin white band around the finger where her ring used to lie. Now that it's gone, worn by her husband, the mark where she wore it refuses to go away. With a smile, she thinks there's a reason for that.

None of this is to say, however, that she does not feel loneliness, that the empty darkness in her house at night does not frighten her. Sometimes she thinks she hears voices in the house at night, a woman whispering in the dark. She wakes with a yell but there is no one there, only a tree branch rattling in the sea breeze or the crash of the waves on the rocky shore.

Sometimes she worries that she only sings of sadness to her child. Her favorite song to sing is of flowers and birds, but also of a love lost at sea. She does not mean to tell her child that there is only sadness in the world, so she tries to sing of happier things. Song of sunlight, birds taking flight, horses, a place called home. She even tries singing a hymn of Gilboa once, but the words stick in her throat and she can't sing anymore.

When her child is kicking fiercely, only the song of birds and ships will make the child stop and listen. So she lies there, stroking the belly that grows every day, and sings of sorrow.

--

The second time Hanna came, exactly one month later, Michelle actually smiled when she found the doctor outside of her door. It was a cold winter day, crisp and bright with no snow.

"Hanna!" Michelle says brightly, stepping side to let her in the door. The doctor doesn't smile, just tugs the collar of her coat more tightly to her throat and steps inside. "Good to see you."

"I'd imagine it would be," Hanna said blandly. Michelle paused as she shut the door.

"I don't mean that it's good to see you, as in it is good to see any other form of life." She sat at the table across from Hanna, a sort of calm serenity surrounding her. "I mean it's good to see _you_."

Hanna stopped taking out her equipment and stared at Michelle, who just looked back at her. "I can't help you get out of here, if that's what you want me to do."

"Did I ask you?"

Hanna looked down. "No."

"Then let's get on with it."

Twenty minutes later, as Hanna was packing up her bag again and Michelle had gone to make herself a cup of tea, the doctor abruptly stopped and placed both her hands on the table. "You have no idea, do you?"

Michelle furrowed her brow. "What do you mean?"

Hanna turned to Michelle, her face serious. "Your brother committed suicide. Four days ago."

It was strange, but Michelle wasn't surprised. The baby gave a hard kick, and she put her hand over the spot. "Oh." In her mind's eye, she saw herself and Jack when they were children, running across the grassy lawn of Alter Mansion. That was before she got sick, before Jack had found the darkness in him, before any of this…

"I just thought you should know." Hanna began walking toward the door, but paused before she reached it. "And I'm sorry about before, when I was harsh with you." She turned and gripped her bag. "I'm your doctor. You should be able to trust me when you can trust no others." She swallowed. "So, just so you are sure, you can trust me with your life. With the life of your child. I might be here by the request of your mother but I…you can trust me."

Michelle lay both hands on her swelling stomach and smiled. "Thank you," she said softly. Hanna nodded, hugged her coat around her, and stepped out into the freezing winter air.

As the door closed, a gust of cold breeze buffeted Michelle in the face. She closed her eyes and breathed it in.

--

One night, as she is preparing a small dinner of split pea soup with ham, something in the dusk outside catches her eye. She looks up, eyes searching the lavender darkness, but sees nothing. She goes back to stirring the soup, but then sees it again. There, it's snow.

Michelle smiles, really smiles, and walks to the window. She had always assumed that there would be no snow here, that it was too close to the ocean, but there are flakes falling outside, disappearing as they hit the frozen ground.

Before she really knows what she's doing, Michelle is out the door and into the pale dusk, tilting her head back and laughing as the snowflakes melt on her cheeks. The baby kicks, and she puts her hand on the spot, lifting her shirt to place her warm palm on the skin of her swelling stomach.

"See, darling? It's snowing. Isn't it beautiful?"

She isn't sure if she is talking to the baby or to David, but it feels good to share the moment with someone. The loneliness is starting to house itself as a dull ache in her chest, and sometimes she wonders if it will still be there when her exile ends. With Jack gone, with David still somewhere in the wild, who will she talk to? Who will she share her life with?

The baby gives two hard kicks, and she smiles. There is her answer.

The pea soup gets burned, but she doesn't mind.

--

Hanna returns in a month and one day, with an armed guard hauling in the ultrasound machine. Michelle watches him curiously, but he doesn't meet her eyes. She wonders what he thinks, seeing her tiny, pregnant, and in exile. She assumes that her mother has bought him out so that he won't tell anyone that she is pregnant, but she wonders what he thinks.

"Alright. Are you ready, Michelle?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, I guess." Michelle lies back in her bed, hiking up her shirt over her rounded torso and only jumping a little as the cold gel is spread on her skin. It takes a few minutes, but then she sees a shape on the black and white screen that can only be the baby.

"There," says Hanna, her tone satisfied. "There's your baby."

Michelle thought she was ready. She thought she was strong enough to do this only, to carry all the weight herself. But as she stares at the little moving shape of her child, she finds that tears are leaking out of the corners of her eyes. She bites her lip, tries to stop, but can't close them because she is too busy staring at the screen.

"There…wait. Is…that's another child."

Michelle sucks in a breath. "What?"

"You are carrying twins." There is awe in Hanna's voice.

"Twins," Michelle echoes in shock. In the logical part of her brain, she realizes that it had to have been a probability. She was a twin herself, after all, and didn't the trait pass through the female line? But to go from having been unable to have any children to carrying two…

Hanna turns to her and sees her shaking with the effort it takes to hold back the sobs. Then the dam breaks and she can't hold it in anymore. Michelle lets out a strangled noise and presses her hands to her mouth, pain lancing through her limbs and settling as a fiery ache in her chest. Her cheeks are wet with tears, and she can barely see Hanna through the ones still in her eyes.

"Oh, child," says Hanna softly, sitting next to Michelle on the bed and wrapping one arm around her. Michelle crumples, collapses into the only other human she has seen in months and months, and lets herself cry. Hanna makes soothing noises and tells her everything will be okay, and Michelle wants to believe her so badly.

That night, after Hanna leaves, Michelle lies in bed staring up at the ceiling, running her hands over the swell in her torso that now houses two lives.

"David," she says softly to the empty house. She opens her mouth to say more, feels like she should be telling him that she is having two of his children, wanting _so badly_ to tell him, but the words don't come.

She curls on her side and hugs her stomach as the tears stream down her face.

--

Some morning much later, when her form is weighed down by the growth of two children instead of one, Michelle is standing out in her small yard, which is more of a meadow anyway. The ocean is crashing in front of her on the grey morning, a seagull spinning above her head and shrieking about something. She has wrapped herself in a huge coat but slips her hands inside the zipper to rub her swelling belly.

"See that there?" she says softly, the words almost eaten up by the waves and the sea breeze. "That, over there across the water? That's where your dad is. Somewhere." A lump rises in her throat. "And he's coming back someday."

Something wet touches her cheek. She lifts her hand to feel it, but it has already melted. Tilting her head back, dark curls tumbling down her back, she stares up at the grey sky and watched as snow falls from the clouds.

A smile makes her lips curl at the corners, the muscles slightly stiff from lack of use. The snow melts as soon as it touches the grass, which is just beginning to turn green again, but it still makes her smile.

Staring up at the clouds, Michelle laughs.

--

That is not to say that everything goes well, or that Michelle is fine with the constant silence and loneliness. When she is sick in the morning, there is no one there to keep her hair back or to stroke her neck and tell her that it will soon pass.

When she wakes up in the middle of the night, pain lancing through her stomach, there is no one to ask if what is happening is hurtful to the children. She must wait until Hanna appears, month after month. As she nears her due date, though, the doctor begins coming more often, which is nice.

The loneliness is hard, but Michelle is adapting.

She misses David with an intensity that scares her, however. She hadn't known him that long before she lost him, and yet he seems as essential to her life as the two tiny beings she carries within her now. She misses his solid warmth, his smile, his goodness in the face of everything terrible that happened in his life. She misses the way she feels when she is with him. Her heart feels terribly hollow, sometimes.

Still, she dreams of her smiling, golden-haired children and believes that everything will come to pass as it should.

--

It's a Friday afternoon when someone knocks on her door. It is not the soft tap that precedes Hanna's visits, but a sharper rap that almost makes Michelle jump out of her skin. Slowly, achingly, she hauls herself out of the chair in the tiny sitting area, putting down her book, and walks to the door.

On the other side of the glass in a pale yellow jacket, is her mother. Michelle's heart jumps erratically in her chest and she can't tell if she's ecstatic or horrified. The queen just raises her eyebrows and waits to be let in.

"Hello, mother," Michelle says slowly as she opens the door. Queen Rose sweeps in, Hanna following much more slowly. "And how have you been these past months?"

"Fixing the havoc that you and your brother wreaked," her mother replies. Michelle doesn't bother protesting what she assumes her mother has fortified in her mind. Of course she and her brother are to blame. How could the king himself have done anything wrong?

"What brings you here?" Michelle sits back down in her chair, and then notices that Hanna is carrying a huge bag and pushing an entire cart full of supplies. The queen herself is carrying a bag.

Her mother's eyebrows shoot up. "Have you forgotten that you're about to give birth?" Her eyes dart down to Michelle's now-huge stomach. "Because you are carrying twins, Dr. Weis believed it best if we induced labor slightly early, to reduce the risk. And I had always planned to be here for this."

Michelle is confused at the emotions roiling in her chest. Part of her is desperately glad that her mother is here, that she has finally come. Another part of her realizes that her mother put her here in the first place. "Why didn't you come earlier?"

Her mother gives her a slightly patronizing smile. "I can't just jet off all the time without your father wondering where I am."

"Why not? He leaves constantly and you never know where he goes." Michelle couldn't resist the blow that she knew would wound her mother the most. The queen took it well, her smile just sliding into a more forced position.

"I was saving you time. I was protecting you."

As Hanna sets up whatever equipment she has brought, Michelle swallows angrily and turns her head to look out the window. The sea is calm today, the sky grey. "And what about Reverend Samuels? Is he coming as well? I want my children baptized."

Something shifts in Rose's eyes, and she frowns. "The reverend has been dead since the day your father took the kingdom back from Jack. They're calling it the Day of Revelation, now."

The bottom of Michelle's stomach drops. The Reverend is dead? But she and David…they _saw_ him. They spoke to him. He _married_ them. Had he died after they had spoken? Or…

To cover the unsettled feeling rising in her stomach, Michelle swallows and looks back at her mother levelly. "I thought the Day of Revelation was supposed to be the end of the world."

Her mother just smiles.

--

After a few injections of something, Michelle begins experiencing what has to be the worst pain she has ever felt. Even her medical treatments as a child weren't this outright painful – they were horrible and draining and she had literally been at Death's door, but they hadn't been this…sharp.

Her mother is surprisingly supportive. Sympathetic and strong all at the same time, Rose grips her daughter's hand and firmly tells her to keep pushing. Hanna is a calm, soothing and sure presence at her feet, every once in a while giving Michelle a gentle squeeze of encouragement on her calf.

But Michelle cries. She cries and screams and thinks she will break in half from the pushing. Surely she is too small to be holding these two children inside of her, let alone to push them from her body. She's tiny, she knows, and she's sure she'll break.

She wants David to be here so badly. She even thinks she sees him, sometimes, in her mother's place, holding her hand and beaming in worried adoration. But then she squeezes her eyes shut to push and he is gone.

She even thinks, in a few moments of intense pain, that she wants her father. She wants his sure presence by her, his solid – or so she thought – faith.

But she grits her teeth, yells, and pushes. She has been alone for almost eight months. She can do this by herself as well.

Still, tears stream down her cheeks as she screams. This is too much. Will it ever end? If it ends, will she end with it? She wishes for David's surety, his strength. Without knowing, she is calling out to him, to God, to anyone who will listen. Her mother tries responding, but she is too far gone.

Then, the pain ceases and she sees Reverend Samuels standing in the doorway.

"Reverend," she breathes between pants. Sweat has plastered her bangs to her forehead. Just seeing him there, calm washes over her. She tilts her head back for a moment with a sob.

"Reverend Samuels isn't here," she hears her mother say, as if from somewhere very far away.

"He's here," breathes Michelle. "He's here." Her smile stretches into another sob.

"He's not here, Michelle." The Reverend's deep voice resonates in her chest, though he doesn't speak loudly. Michelle raises her head to look at him. "He was not there that night in the church, either."

"What – " Michelle says brokenly. Her mother is calling her name, but she can barely hear it. "Then – "

"I am here," He says in the Reverend's deep, velvet voice. "I am here, Michelle, and I will not leave you."

Michelle is shaking, sobbing, gasping for air. "You're here," she whispers.

"I am. You are not alone, Michelle Benjamin." He's standing near the bed now, and she has to tilt her head to look up at him.

"Shepherd," she whispers.

"Michelle Shepherd," he acquiesces with a smile. "You do not walk alone."

One last lancing pain spears her and Michelle presses her eyes shut in a scream. When she opens them, tears clouding her vision, Reverend Samuels is gone and Hanna and Rose is standing at her feet, holding two small shapes.

Wearily, brokenly, Michelle sags back in the pillows, tears streaming down her temples and into her sweaty hair.

"Michelle," says her mother in awe. "Meet your children."

"A boy and a girl," echoes Hanna.

The two babies don't look terribly like either herself or David, but the minute she lays eyes on them she feels the absolute truth in the words her mother said almost a year ago. A mother will do anything for her children. Anything.

They are put next to her on the bed, because she is too weak to hold them both. Her eyes fill with tears, but she can't blink because she is staring too avidly at the two small forms in front of her.

"Samuel," she breathes softly. "And Ellie, for Eli."

"You name them for the Reverend and David Shepherd's brother," her mother says from her side. "Though one is a traitor and the other is the family of the one who left you alone."

"I'm not alone," Michelle says, a smile creeping into the corner of her lips. The words of the Reverend, or whoever was speaking through the Reverend, have settled warmly near her heart. She is not alone.

"David is dead."

It takes a moment for the words to reach her mind. Finally tearing her eyes from her two children, she looks at her mother in horror. "That is a twisted joke to play on a brand new mother," she says slowly. "Why would you say that?"

"Because it's true," her mother says flatly. He was caught in Gath, sent back to our beautiful city of Shiloh and executed for treason against the crown. It's as simple as that. He's gone."

There is no more strength, no more tears, in Michelle to cry anymore. She stares at her children, who are moving restlessly beside her. Her mother leans over her and kisses her hair. "You did well today, my love." Michelle hears her footsteps walking through the door.

Hanna leans in to lift the babies away, but Michelle motions for her to stop. "No," she says, her voice breaking. "I need them here for a little while."

Slowly, Hanna sits on the bed and strokes Michelle's arm. "Oh, darling," she says softly, caringly. At the sound of the sympathy in her voice, Michelle feels a gaping wound open in her chest.

Trembling, she lies in the bed surrounded by three people, and feels so alone that she might disappear.

**--**

To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: This chapter contains some violence and dark imagery. Just a warning.

**Chapter Two**

We were never meant to be this damn broken  
Words were never meant to be this half spoken  
Fallin' in the space between the universe and all we see has gone away  
Gone away

Wind in circles take me back to  
A place I knew when I was with you  
Fallin' in the space between the universe and all we see has gone away

_Gone Away_ – Lucy Schwartz

--

David Shepherd isn't terribly good at disappearing. Before the war, before he went to Shiloh, he had barely been out of his home town. The war changed everything, though.

As David stumbles through the dark undergrowth of a forest in Gath, he thinks about how much he hates war. War took his father, his older brother. War tore his family apart. War gave Silas an edge that only rulers during war can attain, the extreme surety of a nation backing their leader. David hates war.

But, then again, if he hadn't gone to war, he never would have gone to the city. Never would have seen what the world was really like. Never would have met Michelle.

The thought stabs his heart. Feeling the weariness swell up and almost overwhelm him, he sags against a nearby tree, panting, and takes a long drink from his water canteen. The forest is dim around him, all of the shapes blending together in the grayish darkness. It has been nearly five days since his voluntary exile from Gilboa, and he has yet to really figure out where he is going. So he hikes north, avoiding main roads and towns.

David checks his light pack, and knows he'll have to go to a town at some point to buy more food. There's only so much he can scavenge from the woods – he's a farmer and not a hunter, after all.

With a sigh, he tilts his head back against the rough bark of the tree and looks up through the branches at the stars. There are just a few of them between the clouds, but they're there. And there's the north star.

Shouldering his pack again, David keeps walking.

--

Nearly twenty days into his exile, David has to go into a town. He has lost weight from the intense rationing of his supplies – the longer he can go without food means the farther away from the border he can get and the less likely it is someone will recognize his face.

As he wearily walks up the street of a small town, his heavy boots covered in mud and dragging in the dirt, he wonders vaguely if he is about the be captured and shipped back to Gilboa without a second thought. He's fairly certain that if that happens, he'll be dead before the press can even get wind he's back in the country.

The door above the shop door gives a little ring as he walks in, and David almost jumps. After so much time in the wilderness, straining to hear every little sound, something as loud as a bell seems deafening to his ears.

When he has grabbed all the supplies to last him for what he hopes is another month, he walks to the counter. David tries to swallow, but his throat is too dry. The shop owner scans all of his items and then tells David the amount. "Going camping or something?" says the shop owner, not in an unfriendly manner.

David shrugs. "Um, something like that."

"There are some pretty good trails a bit to the east," the man says contemplatively as David pays him with Gath currency. "Not very crowded this time of year, since it's getting so cold." He gives David a somewhat stern look. "Don't go hiking too late in the season, or you'll get caught in a snowstorm."

"Right. Thank you." David smiles faintly and takes the bag of food. As he is about to walk out the door, he sees a newspaper in a stand with Michelle's picture on the front. His heart stumbles and he stops. Picking it up, the headline nearly makes him drop the paper. "The princess of Gilboa has been exiled?"

The shop owner shrugs. "Yeah, for a year. That paper's old as hell, though."

Nodding dully, David puts the paper back. His heart is hammering painfully in his chest. He walks out of the store, shoving the bag of food bleakly in his half-empty pack. Strapping it up and swinging it back onto his back, he takes a deep breath and walks down the road.

At the end of the street, he turns off to the right and walks back into the woods, heading east.

--

At night, as he lies under the trees and tries to sleep, he has a lot of time to think. And, mostly, he thinks about Michelle.

There is a root digging deeply into his back, but as David shifts restlessly he tries to remember what it felt like to be tangled up in her white sheets on the floor, her skin warm from the glow of the fire.

He misses her so much sometimes that it's like a wound has opened up in the center of his chest and the breath gets sucked from his lungs. Her smile, her very slightly awkward pattern of speech, her wish to do good in a world where everyone around her seemed to want to do the opposite. He wonders is she misses him, wherever they're keeping her.

A twig snaps somewhere deep in the bush and he jerks awake, shooting up into a seated position. His hands automatically reach for the gun that isn't by his side. Even though the noise is only an animal moving somewhere in the dark, David is now on edge. He knows, logically, that if he were caught in Gath, having weapons would probably mean his death. Still, the soldier in him feels bare and vulnerable without one.

His heart begins to settle in his chest, and David lies back down on the hard ground. Closing his eyes, he tries to sink back into his reverie. He can't quite decide if thinking of Michelle makes this more bearable or more horrific.

--

Over two months in to David's exile to the wilderness, he kills his first animal.

Though it is not technically his first kill, because he had to put down animals on the farm growing up and he has killed men in war before, it is the first time he has killed for something other than duty.

The deer has a broken leg when he finds it, at the bottom of a small hill near a highway. It has been hit by a car, and is too injured to move but not dead.

David approaches it slowly, feeling bile rise in his throat. His pity for this innocent creature is threatening to overwhelm him, but he grew up on a farm. When an animal is this badly injured, it's only cruel to let them continue to suffer.

The deer struggles to rise as he gets closer, but David knows what he has to do and does so quickly.

Later, as he wipes the warm blood from his hands, he wonders what Michelle would think of him now.

--

When Silas sent David to find the Charter, David could feel something building inside of him. At first it was outright determination, boiling just under the surface and giving him the drive to keep going even when there were no clues, when the trail seemed to have gone dead. Then, slowly, it began to morph into something else. Something dark that kept him going but wore him deeper and deeper into the ground until the weight of it felt like it was about to suffocate him.

That's when David started drinking.

David is not a dark person. He tries to find the goodness, to find the hope, in any situation he finds himself in. But some situations are just too hopeless to have any answer other than defeat or disaster.

He's starting to think this is one of them.

He is a man that needs a mission. He needs direction. Now, winter is coming, and he doesn't have any sort of aim as to where he's going. It has been almost three and a half months, and if he's honest with himself, David's getting tired of living in the woods. There is nowhere he is headed towards, only somewhere he's running from, and the prospect of having to do this for months and months with no end in sight is beginning to wear on him like the Charter mission did.

So, the next time he happens across a town, David walks into it instead of around it.

The sign says 'Kincaid Place' and the windows are dark. David didn't even have the energy to be nervous as he pushed open the doors; all he could think about was the long drink of something he was going to have when he got inside.

It is dim inside, the only real light coming from the big windows along one wall. There aren't very many people, so David goes straight to the bar. The bartender, a man in his mid-forties, sighs and comes up to David.

"What can I get you?"

"Whatever's cheapest," replies David. His voice comes out as a horrible rasp from being used so little. The barkeep gives him a slightly strange look, but nods and complies. David shrugs off his pack, every limb aching with exhaustion, and sits at a stool, resting his elbows against the bar.

"Here you go. Don't ask me what it is." David downs it in one gulp. "Woah. You're eager. Been a rough day?" His eyes roam over David's ragged clothes and unshaven face. "Or maybe a rough few months?"

"The last one," says David, throat burning from the drink, which tasted closer to rubbing alcohol than hard liquor.

"Hm," hums the bartender. "Want another?"

"No, I'm good for now. Thank you." David rests his forehead in his hands, expecting the bartender to go away and to be able to think in peace. The bartender, however, doesn't do as he expects.

"Let me guess. A girl?"

David lets loose a breathy laugh at the bartender's lack of tact. He lifts his head, the movement feeling like lifting lead weights, and meets the barkeep's expectant gaze. "That's part of it."

"She must have done some number on you," the bartender says, a little touch of sarcasm creeping into his tone.

David laughs, his voice cracking a little. He's not sure the last time he laughed. "No, no, she wasn't what happened to me. Well, she was, but she didn't make me like this."

"Oh?" said the barkeep curiously. "What did?" David looks at him steadily until the barkeep holds up his hands in defeat. "Alright, alright. Too many questions. I get it." Silence falls over them and David looks down at his hands. "You understand," the bartender begins again, "I'm just curious because of your accent. Sounds like you come from close to the border. That's a long way from here."

David looks up, and suddenly the bartender doesn't seem so harmless. There's a sharpness in his gaze that makes David thinks he knows more than he's letting on. Slapping some money down on the bar, he stands. "Thanks for the drink."

"Oh, don't go! Don't go," says the bartender quickly, holding up his hands. "I mean you no harm, David Shepherd."

It's as if someone has poured an icy bucket of water over his head. Instantly, David whips around, gaze hard, and steps closer to the bar. "Be quiet," he hisses angrily. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The bartender motions for David to follow him. In an instant, David is reminded of his search for the Charter and what happens when you place your trust in the wrong people. It is then, however, that he notices that the man has a tiny tattoo of a butterfly behind his ear, almost entirely hidden by his hair.

David follows.

In a dim back room, the man turns and sits down, smiling at David amicably. "My name is Alec Warsaw. I'm originally from Gilboa."

Slowly, cautiously, David sits. "What are you doing in Gath?"

Alec laughs hollowly. "You saw the tattoo, am I correct?" In the pause, he sighs. "I used to be a soldier. In the first war, when we took Port Prosperity. I was a patriot." His eyes pierce David's, and David wonders how he ever could have thought that this man was just a normal, unseeing person. "But after the war, instead of being treated like a returning hero, Silas made it so that people…like me couldn't make a life." Again, he gazes levelly at David. "I hear your prince has a similar problem."

David nods, remorse and anger welling in his chest.

Alec sighs and leans back in his chair. "And that was that. I packed up and moved here, as far away as I could from my once beloved country." They stare at each other for a long moment. "Now you, David Shepherd, what are you doing all the way out here?"

In David's mind, the next second takes a year to pass. He sees Jack at his trial, sees the chair where Michelle should have been sitting, sees Silas yelling at a courtroom full of people, sees a firing squad ready to shoot, sees Michelle's pale skin by candlelight, sees Reverend Samuels in a half-lit church.

"Running," he said simply.

"And will you return?" Alec asks.

"Yes," replied David, and he is sure.

Alec smiles. "Well, then you can stay here till you do. Help me keep the bar clean and you can take the room upstairs."

A smile makes the unfamiliar muscles in David's cheeks ache. "Deal."

--

In the months that David lives in the room above Alec's bar, he actually verges on being happy. The manual labor of keeping the bar clean keeps his mind from straying to far or from thinking about how long he has been gone.

It's a Tuesday morning when David picks up the paper on the front steps and there, right on the front page of the paper, is a picture of Jack. David starts reading as he walks bak inside, but stops short when he realizes the point of the story.

Jack committed suicide.

His stomach roils, pity rising in his throat like bile. When he knew Jack, he didn't understand him, didn't know the intention behind any of his actions. It had been unsettling, but Jack was his prince. That was why he had followed Jack. Why he had shot the man by the roadside. And Jack, in return, had saved his life. And now he is dead.

"Know him?" says Alec asks, wiping down the bar to prepare for the day ahead of them.

David pauses, sadness making his throat tight. "I thought so." He puts the newspaper down. "I guess I didn't."

--

In the tiny bed in the tiny room above the bar that Alec is loaning him, David dreams of Michelle. His dreams are strange, though. Filled with butterflies and Michelle pregnant and by the sea. When he wakes, he believes his subconscious must be finding the thoughts he had been keeping to himself deep in his mind. There is really nothing he'd rather have than Michelle, children, a kingdom that didn't live in fear.

He throws himself into work and tries not to think about it.

The next night, however, David dreams the same dream.

--

"So, David," starts Alec one night. They are cleaning up at two in the morning, after a night that included no fewer than three bar fights. David is sweeping up broken glass, and realizes that he might even be starting to be happy here. Just a little.

"Yeah?" he replies.

"What are you waiting for?"

David looks up quizzically. "What do you mean? Once I finish with the glass I'm going to – "

"No, no, I mean…" Alec leaned on his elbows on the bar. "You've been here for nearly eight months. Eight and a half. I'm not pushing you out or anything…I'm just wondering. What are you waiting for?"

Still holding the broom, David looks up at Alec. "Has it really been that long?"

Alec raised his eyebrows. "Yeah."

David shrugs. In the first few months on the run, he had felt such an urgency to find an answer, to rush back to the kingdom and…he didn't know what happened after that. But as the months progressed, the urgency had faded. "I don't know."

"What about that girl?" Alec turned and grabbed a bottle of something amber-colored. He poured two shot glasses and motioned David over. "What about her?"

David's heart throbbed dully. "She's probably moved on by now."

"I doubt she's meeting other men in exile," Alec says sarcastically, downing his drink. David, in the middle of doing the same, nearly spits it out again. Alec laughs. "What, you think I didn't know who she was? The whole world knows about you and Michelle Benjamin, David."

"Shepherd, actually." At Alec's confused look, he explains. "We got married secretly right before I left." He fingers his crystal glass.

Alec is silent for a moment. "Well. Then you have to go back to her."

David laughs bitterly. "I'm a wanted man, Alec. If I go back, I'll bring the police down on her faster than she can say hello. She's probably not even back from her exile yet."

With a quirk of his eyebrow, Alec grabs something from the other side of the bar and slaps it on the table. It's a newspaper, and Michelle's on the front page. She's standing on the steps of the palace in the city, raising her hand at the crowd gathered in front of her. David stares at the picture hungrily, realizing that the little details of how she looks had been slipping from his memory.

He fingers a corner of the paper. "She looks different."

"Well, exile will do that to you, I guess."

"No…it's something else." David's heart is thundering in his chest, and suddenly the urgency returns. "I need to get back."

"So?" says Alec. "What are you waiting for?"

"A sign," replies David.

--

It's a calm grey night and David has no trouble falling asleep. He slips gently into the familiar dream of Michelle by the sea under a grey sky, surrounded by red butterflies. This time, however, something is different. Reverend Samuels is standing next to her.

Michelle is facing away from him, towards the sea, and holding something in her arms. The Reverend walks toward him.

"It is time, David."

David drags his eyes away from Michelle. "For what?"

"To go back."

A sense of rightness washes over him. This was what he was meant to do. Still, uncertainty makes his throat tighten. "But…what am I supposed to do once I get there?"

The Reverend smiles and somehow David's fears are momentarily quelled. "It will come, David. A plan will come. You know who to trust."

David's eyes slip to Michelle, and he wonders why she won't turn around. "Are you sure?"

"You need fear no evil. You, David, are never alone."

David wakes with the Reverend's deep voice in his ears and a pounding in his chest. Panting, he swings his legs over the side of the bed and leans his head in his hands. Something about the dream is vaguely unsettling, but he can't quite figure out what. He is simply overcome with an urgency, a feeling, a sense of _knowing._

It is time to go back.

--

TBC

AN: Thank you SO MUCH for all the positive feedback on the first chapter! :) It might be a while till the next chapter's up, because I'm moving back across the country this weekend and the next chapter's going to be a long, complex one. SIGH.


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Sorry this took so long to write!! I moved (twice) and then started school again and everything's been insane and this was a hard chapter to write. :( ANYWAY. Here it is! Thanks so much for the wonderful response so far - you guys are awesome!

--

**Chapter Three**

This is my winter song to you, the storm is coming soon, it rolls in from the sea  
My voice; a beacon in the night, my words will be your light, to carry you to me.  
Is love alive?

They say that things just cannot grow beneath the winter snow, or so I have been told.  
They say we're buried far, just like a distant star; I simply cannot hold.  
Is love alive?

This is my winter song. December never felt so wrong, 'cause you're not where you belong; inside my arms.

I still believe in summer days, the seasons always change and life will find a way.  
I'll be your harvester of light and send it out tonight, so we can start again.  
Is love alive?  
_Winter Song_ – Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson

--

Michelle tugs her deep purple jacket more tightly around her body, not so much because she is cold but because she feels like she needs pressure to hold herself together. She steps back inside the palace, hands curled in the thick, velvet material and thinks that she would almost rather be back in her little house by the sea.

"Well done, puppy!" says the king, walking over to her with a smile and clapping his hand on her shoulder. Her mother has already left the room to make preparations for her welcoming banquet, without any word of comfort for her daughter. He rubs the back of her neck in what he believes is comforting, but she barely refrains from flinching away from the touch. "They love you, just as they always did, and now that there's no question about your loyalty – "

"My _loyalty_?" she says, stepping away from him but turning to face him. "There was never any question of my loyalty, _father_."

The king raises his eyebrows in that way that conveys calculated surprise. "I see a year in exile has done nothing to dull the sharpness of your tongue."

Michelle thinks of Samuel, of Ellie, of David. "No. In fact, I suspect it has done the opposite."

Before he can reply, she ducks out of the room, her heeled shoes clicking on the marble floor, and all but runs up to her rooms. When she is safely inside the doors, she presses her back to them and forces herself to take deep, steady breaths. She is shaking, shaking from the effort of holding herself together, of keeping herself from screaming at her father, her mother, the entire public that has gathered in front of the palace to stare at the princess so recently returned from exile. It makes her sick.

She presses a hand to her belly and has to swallow back a lump in her throat. Inside of her is a gaping emptiness where Sam and Ellie should be. Her mother gave her one day to spend with her children before Hanna gently took them from the bed and Michelle watched them walk out the door, too weak to protest.

Staring at the rooms she hasn't seen in a year, she wonders how two tiny beings can have made such a mark on her in such a short period of time. She feels like something vital has been torn from her chest against her will. And yet her mother goes about her daily business as if nothing has happened. She says she has to, because the king can never know what happened, and yet Michelle can't help but feel extraordinarily angry at her.

It's evening now, and her mother has let her know that they won't be expecting her at dinner because the king has an issue of state to attend to. Michelle thinks that she would have skipped dinner anyway, but welcomes the excuse.

Wearily, she walks deeper into her rooms and begins looking around. Someone has set out tea for her, and she pours a cup with shaking hands before setting it down when it rattles too much.

She can't believe she is here, just sitting and drinking tea and playing along on the ridiculous charade her mother has going. If she had slightly less control over herself, she would throw this teacup to the ground and run through the palace screaming her head off in anger and frustration.

As it happens, Michelle is extraordinarily self-controlled.

Touching the rim of the teacup with her finger, she sighs. Just as it seems strange that her small children have left such a hole in her life, it seems strange that David, though she only knew him for a short time, can have left a similar hole. The palace, though she lived here years before she knew him, seems like a completely different place now that he is gone.

And he is gone. Sometimes, as she is attempting to fall asleep, Michelle likes to think that he is still out there somewhere, alive and trying to get back to her. She imagines what it would be like to see him again, to wrap her arms around his solid warmth, to bury her face in the crook between his neck and shoulder.

But Michelle knows what Death feels like. Sometimes she thinks she hears music, a slow march-like tune playing in the distance. But when she turns her head just slightly, it's gone. The feeling of Death is just behind her, just over her shoulder. She knows the feeling.

Sometimes she wonders why she didn't feel it that night in the church, with Reverend Samuels. But now she knows it was because they were in a sacred space, that God was speaking to them through the Reverend.

So, alone in her room, Michelle falls asleep.

--

In her dream, there is a woman. She is tall, with long hair that falls in a sheet down her back. Thin and elegant, she walks with a surety that Michelle envies for an instant before she feels the fear creeping through her veins. This woman terrifies her.

She doesn't say a thing, but there is a knowing look in her dark, flat eyes.

The scene changes, and she is standing beside a golden throne, one hand resting on the shoulder. In the throne, staring at her, is her father. He is looking at her with such heart-wrenching sorrow and love in his eyes that for a moment Michelle can't breathe. The woman slowly places her hand on the king's shoulder and her flat eyes lock with Michelle's. She smiles.

Michelle wakes gasping for air, tangled in her sweaty sheets.

--

She walks through the next few days like she is mostly asleep, nodding and smiling blandly when spoken to, sitting quietly and unobtrusively in the background and letting her parents steer her where they wish. It's been a while since she's stopped thinking of them as her parents, though.

Her thoughts are consumed with longing for her children and David, with questions about her dream. She wishes desperately that she had someone to talk to – God, Reverend Samuels, Hanna, _anyone_. Instead, she is unobtrusive and ignored.

She spends a lot of her time on the roof overlooking the city. Her mother never comes here and her father…well, he used to come here to speak with God, but he stopped coming here some time ago, right after her exile. Something tells her he doesn't like the silence.

From up here, she can look out at the city her father built out of the dust. It surrounds her, engulfs her, suffocates her. She used to love it, to think it signified hope out of the darkest of times, that it was the paradise she woke to see out of her sickness. Now it's just a reminder of everything that happened in those days. The Days of Revelation, her mother called them. Perhaps they mean clairvoyance, but Michelle can only sense an end. Utter destruction.

Wrapping her arms around herself – it is early spring and yet she still feels chilled – she tilts her head back, staring at the scattered clouds above her head.

Something rushes past her, the wind from its wings brushing her cheek. Looking, she sees the deep orange wings of a butterfly, fluttering out beyond the edge of the building. Its black-splattered wings are buffeted by the wind, but somehow it manages to stay relatively close to the building. Michelle doesn't know whether to smile or cry when she sees it.

It doesn't matter that the butterfly is the symbol of her father, of Gilboa. Butterflies will always remind her of David.

--

That night, the dream is different. It begins the same, with the woman standing nose-to-nose with her, those flat, dark eyes making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. The woman smiles with somber knowledge and Michelle thinks she hears music.

Then the scene changes. They are in the meeting hall, and the sky outside the glass wall is pale with sunlight. She sees people in the seats, all still and silent. Her mother stands to the side, head turned away. The Reverend stands behind the throne, hands on the shoulders of the chair. The Lady Death, for that is what Michelle knows her to be, stands at the opposite end of the table as her mother and her eyes follow Michelle. Everything is completely still, the silence echoing in her ears.

She sees herself, then, standing just to the left of the chair. She's wearing blue and her eyes are bright. It's then that Michelle sees who is in the chair.

It's David, and she can sense without needing any sort of clues that he is the king.

Her breath catches. This must be some sort of wish fulfillment on the part of her mind, because David is dead. David is dead, and yet here he is. Goosebumps break out all across her skin to see him again, living and breathing and looking at her with such calm surety.

She knows what she has always suspected: David was meant to be the king. He was chosen. It was his fate.

She wakes trembling, and when she realizes that she is alone in her room, she curls into a ball and cries, overwhelmed with longing and self-pity.

--

It's then that she decides to go out to Alter Mansion, to get away from her parents, to get away from the hole left in the palace by her children, by David, by _Jack_. She tries not to think about it, but even the absence of her brother, though he acted terribly at the end, leaves a dull ache in her bones. She needs to leave.

As she sits on the porch in the warming sunlight, she finds it almost amusing that after a year of exile, she still wants to be alone.

"Princess?"

For a moment, Michelle thinks it's just a housemaid, but then she recognizes the voice. She spins in her chair, all but leaping to her feet. "Hanna?"

The woman smiles hesitantly, her eyes sweeping over Michelle. "Hello." Michelle ignores all etiquette and all but throws herself at Hanna, wrapping her arms tightly around Hanna and not letting go. "Oh, dear," Hanna says, half fond and half surprised. "I didn't realize you'd be so lacking in company now that you're back in favor with the king."

Michelle pulled away. "I'm not back in favor with the king. He just feels he's won because I played along with his little game." She swallowed back a lump in her throat. "Hanna, how did you get here? And how are Sam and Ellie?"

At the mention of their names, Hanna's mouth widens into a smile. "They're beautiful, Michelle. Wonderful. Well, they're still not sleeping through the night and your young Samuel cries a lot, but they're babies. That's what they're supposed to do." Hanna smoothes a hand over Michelle's hair and the princess hangs on her every word. "As for the other question, don't worry yourself about it."

Michelle swallows and glances around her. "Where are they? Can I see them?"

Hanna smiles. "Why do you think I came? There aren't reporters allowed out here and I know a few people in the kitchens who will let us leave and won't tell anyone. Some people see your father for what he truly is, and know what you did for David Shepherd." Taking Michelle's hand, she leads her quickly through the mansion, ducking into the servants' corridors and hurrying out a hidden door different from the one Michelle knew about.

Soon they are driving along a crowded road. Michelle stares out the window and watches the people outside, happy to see people again who aren't her own family.

Hanna pulls into the driveway of a completely normal looking house and Michelle's heart jumps up to her throat. Beckoning her, Hanna leads her up the steps.

The twins are in a small room that is pale yellow with early morning sunlight. Michelle barely notices Hanna speaking with another woman who must have been looking after the napping children because she is too caught up in the sight of the two small forms in their cribs.

It feels like hours that she spends studying them, her eyes cloudy with tears. Now that she isn't bone weary and destroyed by grief, she has the time to look at both of them more carefully. Ellie, she sees, has a soft smattering of blonde hair on her head, and a mouth she thinks looks like David's, but more delicate. Samuel has dark hair, like her, and while she watches he opens his big green eyes and blinks up at her. She smiles nervously down at him.

"Hey there, sweetheart," she whispers, reaching down to stroke his cheek. Fear bubbles up in her stomach, fear that they won't recognize her as their mother, that she will never be part of their lives.

Samuel reaches up and grabs her finger, holding onto it with a surprisingly strong grip. Her breath catches. He doesn't smile, just looks seriously up at her and holds on to her finger.

When Hanna comes in a short time later, Samuel has fallen asleep holding his mother's finger, and she is quietly weeping, a hand covering her mouth.

--

Her father comes to visit her at Alter Mansion, once. Feeling sick to her stomach, she greets him in the front hall as he sweeps in with his entourage trailing behind him. She sees, with no small amount of disgust, that he has given his biographer a break.

"Puppy," he says cheerfully upon seeing her, wrapping her up in his arms and kissing her cheek. A year and a half ago, she would have loved this. Now, it makes her want to do something violent. "Come, sit down. You and I haven't spoken since you got back." He steers her into the library, with its lush couches, high bookshelves and dark spaces.

Sitting tensely on the edge of the couch, Michelle raises her eyebrows. "You make it sound like I was on vacation."

Her father shrugs. "Considering your crime, the punishment was not that severe." She swallows back the bile in her throat, along with the words of protest she so desperately wants to say. Her _crime, _her nonexistent crime, could still get her killed if she doesn't watch what she says. And now she has more than herself to live for. Before, she had been willing to give up her life for David, but now that he is gone she has to keep herself alive for her children. So she grits her teeth and smiles. "Your mother made sure it was as close to a vacation as possible, for all that it was exile for treason." He isn't even looking at her as he says the words carelessly, but instead looking around the room as if he hasn't seen it in a long time.

Michelle's control crumbles. "Like Jack's punishment? Somehow I don't think people usually kill themselves while on vacation." At this, her father turns and looks at her steadily. The look in his eyes makes her stomach turn over. In quiet disbelief, she says, "You aren't sorry, are you?" When he doesn't say anything, just keeps looking at her, she has to look away and swallow back the disgust rising in her throat.

Standing abruptly, she makes her way towards the door. "I'm tired. I think I need to lie down."

As she leaves, she hears him call calmly after her, "See you at dinner, puppy."

--

After dinner, Michelle retreats up to her room again, claiming exhaustion again. She shuts the door behind her, the lights still off, and just breathes for a second, trying to clear her head. It doesn't work. There is too much anger boiling up inside of her, anger she isn't aloud to show. How can this man be her father? What happened to the man that read her stories when she was dying and made a city out of ashes?

A sound in the dim room makes her jump. She freezes, her eyes automatically sweeping through the dark cavern her room has suddenly turned into, and suddenly realizes that there is someone in the room other than herself. Glancing around, she finds some sort of decorative crystal sculpture to her right and grabs it, arming herself and then creeping through her darkened rooms.

She is almost to the bedroom when there is another noise, this time behind her. She spins around and nearly has a heart attack when she sees a tall, dark shape much closer to her than she thought. Instinctively, she bites back her scream and swings the sculpture at her attacker. It connects and he – it's definitely a 'he' – lets out a muffled yell. Michelle stops short at the noise.

"David?" she says disbelievingly.

"Did you really have to attack me?" he says wryly, and in the darkness she can see he is holding his left shoulder. "I guess it could have been worse, but – "

Heart thundering in her chest to the point of bursting, Michelle darts sideways and fumbles to turn on a lamp as quickly as possible. She has to – she can't let herself think that he's alive until she actually sees him in the light. The room is flooded with dim golden light and there he is, alive and ragged looking, holding a shoulder that looks like it's bleeding through his shirt.

With a strangled gasp, Michelle all but throws herself at him, her arms finding their way around his body like they've never been apart. He hisses in a breath as she bumps his shoulder, but he embraces her back, tightly but not as desperately as she is embracing him.

Pulling back, Michelle is seized by a sudden rage and shoves him back from her. Ignoring his shocked look and fervently fighting back tears, she barely remembers to keep her voice at an angry whisper. "I thought you were dead, David. You were executed. Where the _hell_ have you been?"

David's eyebrows rise in disbelief. "I've been in Gath, Michelle, remember? Far, far away from here." Michelle claps a hand over her mouth, as if that will contain all of the emotions building up inside of her.

"Why did you try to get word to me that you were alive?" she says through her fingers, voice low and choked but still angry.

"Because I was far away, and besides, I didn't know you thought I was dead." His voice softens, then. "I didn't even know you were in exile until I finally went into a town and saw a newspaper. That was the point of me going to Gath, Michelle. To hide."

She knows she's overreacting and that his words make sense, and she doesn't know why she's angry instead of joyful that he is alive, but nothing seems to be making sense right now. "I thought you were dead," she repeats flatly. His expression changes and he reaches for her but pauses, like he's unsure if he can touch her or not. She reaches for him and then they're holding each other again, one of his hands in her hair and her arm avoiding his injured shoulder. "I'm sorry I hit you with the sculpture," she says, her voice muffled from being buried in his good shoulder. She feels him shudder with laughter.

"No problem." His lips press against the top of her head. She shifts her head, trying to be as close to him as possible. Her heart is pounding, because it still seems impossible that her mother lied to her and that he's here, mostly unharmed and holding her like he used to. As she moves her head, she feels something underneath his shirt.

"What's that?" she says quietly, looking at the lump curiously. He lets go of her with one arm to reach under his shirt and pull out a thin chain. On the chain, dangling at the end, is the ring she gave him that night in the church. "I couldn't wear it on my finger without getting unwelcome questions, so I had to improvise." He wrinkles his nose down at her. "Too cliché?"

She gives him a watery smile. "A little, but I like it."

Their eyes meet then, and for Michelle's heart stumbles as she realizes yet again that he is _here_ and he is _alive_ and why is she wasting all this time talking? She sees something similar going through his mind, and his eyes slip down to her lips.

They come together hesitantly, like they did back at the beginning, halting a breath away from each other before letting their lips touch, sucking in a breath at the last minute in anticipation. At the feel of his warm, soft lips on hers, Michelle feels a fiery feeling of possession course through her. This man is _hers_, and she is never losing him again. His hand slides down to her hip, the other tangling in her hair and cupping the back of her head, his kisses becoming deeper and more desperate the more they continue.

With a sudden shock through her passion-clouded mind, Michelle realizes he doesn't know anything that happened to her in the past year. Jerking back, she takes a deep breath. "David, there's something I need to tell you."

He is about to tilt her head up for another kiss, but he stops short, the worry line between his brows deepening. "What is it?"

She runs a hand over her face, trying to get her heart rate back somewhere near normal before tells him the thing that will change his life forever. "You might want to sit down." He, of course, shakes his head and remains standing. Taking another deep breath, Michele figures it is best to just say it. "The reason why I didn't show up to your trial, David, wasn't because I didn't want to. There was nothing I wanted more. But that morning, I found out I was pregnant." She watches the information wash over him, watches his face change from confusion to shock to amazement. She smiles hesitantly. "I wasn't supposed to be able to have children. My mother convinced me that if I had anything to do with you, my father would come after me. She sent me into exile to keep me away from him, so he would never know." She swallows. "While I was in exile, a doctor visited me regularly, and I found out that not only was I pregnant…I was pregnant with twins." The shock reappears on David's face and his mouth opens in awe.

"Twins?" he repeats softly. She nods, her smile breaking into a grin.

"They're beautiful," she says. "I hope you can see them soon."

His mouth falls open in amazement again. "You…had them?"

She laughs a little nervously. "Well I'm not exactly pregnant right now, am I?"

Making a low noise of astonishment in his throat, David steps forward and wraps her in his arms, burying his face in her hair. "I can't believe it. I can't…what are their names? Are they boys or girls or – "

Stroking his back, she laughs a little again. "One boy, one girl. Samuel and Ellie."

He pulls back and cups her face in his hands, staring seriously into her eyes. "For Reverend Samuels…and Eli?" When she nods, he pulls her face to his and kisses her, hard. "I love you."

The words whirl like butterflies in her stomach. "I love you," she says back between kisses. "But what are we going to do now that you're back? My father is right downstairs, and I – "

Still holding her, David pulls back and looks at her directly. "When I was in Gath, I…I realized something. I left before because I was afraid for my life, and afraid that I would drag you down with me, and too afraid to stay and see Silas ruin Gilboa again." There's something about him at this moment that makes Michelle's heart pound in anticipation. "But I'm not afraid anymore," he says with a smile. "And I know what I have to do."

"What do you have to do?" Michelle asks, remembering her dream.

"I have to take down Silas," he says.

--


End file.
